Candles versus lightbulbs

In watching the movie about Bob Dylan's move from folk into experimenting with other forms of music, a couple of lines in the script str...

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Service organisation decline, part 2

I have been continuing to mull over why service club membership is declining (read my earlier thoughts here ), and stumbled across a PhD ...

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Service organisation decline, part 1

I have been a member of a few not for profit, or NFP,  organisations:  interest, sport, professional, and community groups. But I am not cur...

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Retiring retirement

Sir Dick Seddon, then PM, proposed a compulsory retirement age of 65 years in 1898 when the average life expectancy for a New Zealander was ...

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Tattoos and the sea

I was listening to an old audiobook by Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches (1987), a range of essays linking Dutch narratives, artefac...

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A bit more ANZAC biscuit history

A number of food historians have explored the humble ANZAC biscuit: that little oaty disc of Antipodean crunchiness or chewiness (Kelley, 20...

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Career Development and Vision Boarding

I was wondering if some cultures affiliate more to structure within qualitative assessments; and some less so. By qualitative assessments, I...

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Can we assume that US tests fit New Zealanders?

The population of New Zealand is quite diverse (Massey University, 2026), and I think we like to think of ourselves as being a very diverse ...

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Avoiding the anxiety zone

The term 'status' refers to our position in society, or our value to society (de Botton, 2005). That status might spring from a lega...

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Using career assessments from other countries

It is quite a process to create, test and normalise career assessment instruments (Stuart, 2004) , but  living in the Antipodes, where we ha...

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Thanks by way of a chocolate fish

Oh: why do we Kiwis award a chocolate fish as a thank you? Well, giving a small token of thanks - koha - for a job well done is a Kiwi cult...

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Employee voice and silence

Employee voice is "the ability to have meaningful input into decisions" (Budd, 2004, p. 13). This is effectively industrial democr...

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Career inaction

Most of us are likely to have phases of action and inaction throughout our various career stages, perhaps not necessarily taking action when...

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Hofstede's cultural dimensions

Culture is a shared societal system of values and norms, which - when taken together - are a "design for living" (Rao, 2008, p. 30...

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